Barbara J. Hamby

Lazy Summer Days

We’ve had a couple of delightful days—dry but not too hot. I get lazy and want to sit on the deck and read or nap. Life’s little projects get in the way from time to time, but I do manage to laze away a few hours.

I have a strong urge to simplify my life—get rid of most of my books and all the clothes that don’t fit any more. I’ve been working on it, but I find that, like my old body, my brain gets tired quickly of making all those decisions. To some extent I can empathize with hoarders, but in my case it’s not because I want to be surrounded by stuff. I just get tired of deciding where to send it. Is this outfit good enough for Discovery Shop, where they want “gently used” clothing or should it go to Goodwill where they can make it into rags if they think it won’t sell? Should those books go to a library or Goodwill or perhaps even be sold to Powell’s?

As many times as I’ve moved in my lifetime, I am appalled at how much I’ve managed to accumulate and drag around with me. No wonder I’m tired.

For the third time I’m reading Orwell’s 1984. I ran across an old paperback edition in the King City library. I read it with great curiosity the first time shortly after it came out in 1949, again in 1984, and now I’m about a third of the way through it. So I wonder, is texting the reincarnation of newspeak? I notice “Orwellian” is a recognized word in a paperback dictionary on my shelf. It is interesting to wonder and compare some of the things the book predicted with what goes on in our society today.

When I finish it, I’ll have to find Brave New World and re-read it. I remember being surprised to learn that the Huxley brothers graduated from Reed College here in Portland. When I first moved here, I lived near Reed. According to Wikipedia, Aldous Huxley wrote another novel in 1962 that I don’t remember hearing about. I’ll have to look that one up also.